Melon Journey: Bittersweet Recollections is an journey recreation for the Nintendo Change. It sports activities a super-retro type in a world stuffed with cute critters that belies the darkish story effervescent beneath the floor. Let’s dive in for journey!
The story follows Honeydew, a advertising worker at an organization that produces a profitable model of melon soda. It appears Honeydew has the time off, so she pops into work to verify on issues earlier than heading to a café to satisfy some associates. When her bestie, Cantaloupe, doesn’t present up, it’s time to begin investigating.
Gameplay includes wandering round varied areas and interacting with characters and objects. It performs very like an interactive novel. You’ll uncover gadgets alongside the way in which and assist resolve points for a number of the residents, all whereas looking for clues to the thriller of Cantaloupe’s whereabouts. And this, in flip, results in a much more sinister plot.
Melon Journey is stuffed with attention-grabbing characters. Every has his or her personal story to inform, from a easy story about prepare conductors taking lengthy lunch breaks to a ghost who needs to hitch a neighborhood gang. There’s a cheese cult. There’s somebody who consistently loses his pet ant. We discover a pretend popstar, a DJ, and an ageing, jaded musician. To not point out the mayor who appears to be out of contact with at present’s residents. There are such a lot of quirky and enjoyable moments to find.
The sport additionally encourages these interactions by making it half and parcel of discovering the hidden plot. It’s value testing everybody you come across; you simply by no means know what’s modified because you final ventured previous. And whereas not each component is crucial, in the event you don’t discuss to everybody, you’ll miss a number of the story. It does result in a bit of repetition as you search one thing new, however, typically, the trouble pays off.
The inhabitants of this offbeat world are largely cute animals. There are hedgehogs, mice, rabbits, owls, and lots of extra. Honeydew herself is a human (I’m fairly certain) who’s compelled to put on rabbit ears as a part of her job. The CEO of the soda firm is a rabbit, in spite of everything.
Graphically, Melon Journey seems to be improbable. It’s instantly apparent the sport goes for a Sport Boy-esque vibe, tinged with a inexperienced coloration to focus on the melon side. It really works so nicely, taking the Sport Boy aesthetic we all know and love and wrapping it in a top-down pixelated type. The characters ooze character, with facial expressions and actions that deliver the story to life. The animation and lower scenes are additionally wonderful, as is the music. The eShop itemizing dubs the audio stylings as “jazzy lo-fi”, which inserts the invoice completely. It’s stuffed with upbeat digital tunes that go well with the retro graphics whereas immersing you into this world.
There’s rather a lot to like about this title. Other than often not figuring out the place to go, my solely actual grievance is a random glitch that brought about the sport to restart. This occurred 3 times throughout my five-ish hour playthrough, which mainly brought about the Change to restart. Phrase of warning—save regularly! The builders just lately talked about by way of Twitter a patch that solves this difficulty, nevertheless it’s laborious to check because it’s random. I hope the patch works, as a result of that is an in any other case great recreation.
Total, Melon Journey: Bittersweet Recollections is a singular journey right into a world stuffed with attention-grabbing characters. There’s rather a lot to uncover and rather a lot to get pleasure from, and the retro graphics are terrific. That is one to take a look at, though a glitch (which is hopefully now patched) does mar issues barely—make sure to save usually.